Sonosite Joins the Fight Against Coronavirus in China
After the outbreak of COVID-19, commonly called coronavirus, Sonosite team members across China have stepped forward to support local clinicians in the diagnosis of coronavirus and to help control the epidemic’s spread. In the fight against coronavirus, ultrasound is a key tool for healthcare workers who are saving lives in this critical period. Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) provides rapid, non-invasive real-time scanning, and it is an ideal device for monitoring cardiopulmonary function in critically-ill patients.
Sonosite has sent support staff to the provinces of Hubei, Zhejiang,…
Pioneering Best Practice in Vascular Access with Point-of-Care Ultrasound
Alexandros Mallios is a vascular surgeon at the Institut Mutualiste Montsouris (IMM) hospital in Paris. For the last four years, he has pioneered the use of ultrasound-guided percutaneous arteriovenous fistula access in patients undergoing hemodialysis. Dr. Mallios explains why he believes point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) should be the standard of care for vascular access in all patients.
During my vascular surgical fellowship at the University of Oklahoma, it became clear to me that using ultrasound was fundamental to providing high quality care in hemodialysis patients. It helps to…
Ultrasound Vital for Women’s Healthcare in Rural Ghana
Dr. Carlye Jensen practices emergency and family medicine in Canada. She recently went on a mission for Ghana Rural Integrated Development (GRID), whose purpose is to provide basic medical care to the rural areas of northern Ghana, where many patients have no access to healthcare at all. Dr. Jensen’s team borrowed two Sonosite M-Turbos for the November 2019 mission, and provided us with a report on how she put the portable ultrasound machines to good use.
After landing in Ghana's capital Accra, we took a 12-hour bus ride to the village of Carpenter, where we are housed for our two-week…
Ultrasound Plays Vital Role in Training Clinicians in Vietnam
Dr. Megan Thùy Vũ is a global surgery resident at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. In addition to the five-year clinical general surgery program, she has two additional years dedicated to cross-training in other specialties, including point-of-care ultrasound, orthopedics, and OBGYN. Her professional interests include global pediatric surgery, trauma in combat and austere settings, and global surgical training and educational program development. Dr. Vũ sent us this report about the International Pediatric Specialists Alliance for the Children of Vietnam (ISPAC-VN) and the role…
POCUS Profile: Dr Raj Tobin
Dr. Raj Tobin, Director & Head of the Department of Anesthesiology at Max Super Specialty Hospital in Saket, New Delhi has 28 years of experience in anesthesiology. We interviewed Dr. Tobin to learn about the various clinical applications and the benefits of using point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) in her routine practice.How long you have been using ultrasound in your practice?My first introduction to ultrasound technology was in 2006 when I attended a regional anesthesia workshop in New Delhi conducted by Dr. Manoj Karmakar from Chinese University, Hong Kong. It was an amazing experience…
Sonosite M-Turbo Gets Plenty of Work in Vanuatu: Part Two
This post is the second part of Dr. Jonathan “Jono” Henry’s report from the Pacific nation of Vanuatu. Be sure to read the first chapter of his remarkable report.Out in the peripheries, supply chains fail frequently: depleted electrolyte reagents, exhausted medication supplies, emptied oxygen tanks, or a single broken part rendering the X-ray machine dormant for months on end. Power outages occur regularly, and disasters such as volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and cyclones disrupt inter-island transport and retrieval plans. These interdependent systems running at maximum capacity on a small…
MSK Pain and Prescribing Opioids
A new study published by the National Institutes of Health’s Journal of Pain reveals that first-time patients suffering from chronic MSK pain are prescribed opioids more often than non-drug treatments. Researchers analyzed data from the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey between 2007 and 2015. The data came from 11,994 visits over the 9-year period.
They found that these patients were prescribed non-opioid drugs 40.2% of the time, with opioids being prescribed 21.5% of the time. In contrast, non-drug treatments (such as counseling, exercise programs, diet and nutrition advice, and…
One Woman’s Mission to End Preventable Infant and Maternal Deaths in Somaliland
Midwife Edna Adan has always dreamt of building her own hospital. After training in London in the 1950s, she qualified as a midwife and returned to her home in Somaliland. Unfortunately, a protracted civil war meant that it was many years before her plan could be realized, and she had to leave her homeland. During the thirty-year civil war, Edna worked for the World Health Organization (WHO) in many countries across Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia, and was responsible for training midwives and traditional birth attendants in 22 countries. Edna shared her story of how ultrasound…
Center for Medicare & Medicaid Implement New Rules for Shoulder Pain Diagnosis
Beginning on January 1, 2020, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) launched a new appropriate use criteria (AUC) program for advanced diagnostic imaging services provided to Medicare beneficiaries. The purpose of the new program, enacted as part of the Protecting Access to Medicare Act (PAMA) signed into law in 2014, is to address the overutilization of MRI, CT, nuclear medicine, and PET scans.
Shoulder pain, including suspected rotator cuff injury, is one of eight initial clinical areas CMS had identified to review for overutilization and ordering patterns that are…
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Implement New Criteria for Advanced Imaging
Beginning January 1, 2020, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is implementing a new appropriate use criteria (AUC) program that will be applied to advanced diagnostic imaging services. The program was established as a provision of the 2014 Protecting Access to Medicare Act (PAMA) to reduce overutilization of these services.
Under the new AUC program, clinicians are required to consult a qualified Clinical Decision Support Mechanism (CDSM) prior to ordering Medicare Part B advanced diagnostic imaging services, defined as an MRI, CT, nuclear medicine, or PET scan.…
The AI Revolution is Coming in Emergency Care
U.S. News & World Report
Diku Mandavia, MD, FACEP, FRCPC, Chief Medical Officer at FUJIFILM Sonosite
Despite expansion in health insurance coverage, emergency rooms are seeing a larger and aging population, sicker patients who arrive in immediate danger with more chronic conditions, physician shortages as care is expanded, a need for more expensive technical tools, and an unsustainable trend in costs and expenditures. Partial rescue from these challenges may be coming from the most unlikely of sources: artificial intelligence. These aren't robots, but smart apps and tools that can…
Nurse Educator Puts Sonosite iViz Ultrasound to Work in Ethiopia
Nurse educator Abigail Butts MS, RN, CCNS, CCRN is the Communications Project Manager of Three Roots International, a nonprofit that partners with communities in Ethiopia to cultivate community development and economic capacity by empowering families through education, health, and income generating activities. Abigail borrowed a Sonosite iViz through the Global Health Loaner program. She returned from a mission from Ethiopia and sent us this report.
We partnered with the Ministry of Health in Ethiopia to set up a free mobile medical clinic in a rural area of Ethiopia near our project…
Australian Hospital Uses X-Porte to Identify Bone Fractures
An X-ray machine isn’t always necessary to image a broken bone. In an article published in the Queensland government’s healthcare site Gold Coast Health, Dr. Peter Snelling of Gold Coast University Hospital explains how he uses ultrasound to identify bone fractures in children. Dr. Snelling was granted a $159,000 grant to compare ultrasound and X-ray imaging for buckle fractures. Local Queensland news station Channel 9 also reported on Dr. Snelling’s work. Dr. Snelling uses a Sonosite X-Porte in the video.
Channel 9 report on using ultrasound to find bone fractures (video)
Ultrasound…
Ultrasound Improves Renal Care at St. Helier Hospital
St Helier Hospital in the London borough of Sutton has one of the largest renal medicine departments in the UK, and relies on FUJIFILM Sonosite point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) systems to improve care and patient safety. Dr Pritpal Virdee, a senior registrar in the department, explained: “We have a very busy renal department offering a wide range of services to people with kidney conditions. We use POCUS throughout the department for both patient assessment and ultrasound-guided interventions–such as line or drain insertions, aspirations, biopsies – performing over 1,000 procedures every year…
Sonosite Ultrasound Technology in an African Village
Emergency physician Dr. Steven Boutrus was kind enough to write this article for FUJIFILM Sonosite about his use of ultrasound during a medical mission for Grace Dental and Medical Missions.
Boïffo is a rural village in the far north of Benin, West Africa. It is a farming village typical of this region, containing densely clustered, mud-walled houses in the village center, surrounded by several miles of farmland in every direction. There are no public utilities such as electricity or running water, and the only government presence is the village chief. The region is dotted…
Ultrasound guided Regional Anesthesia - a major component of ERAS: Dr. Ritesh Roy
Ultrasound guided regional anesthesia (USGRA) in 21st century has set a new standard of perioperative care for a wide range of surgical sub-specialty procedures, including orthopedic, general, thoracic, colorectal, breast, gynecologic and cosmetic surgery. The use of Ultrasound guided regional anesthesia has emerged as an important component of enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) protocols, designed to optimize patient co-morbidities before surgery, reduce stress responses after surgery, and promote early physical therapy and return to daily activities. ERAS…
Sonographer Brings POCUS Education to Guyana
RAD-AID International works to optimize access to medical imaging, radiology services, and nursing care and education in over 30 countries around the world. In a recent medical mission to Guyana, Radha Persaud, RDMS, RDCS, RT, Ultrasound Coordinator at Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell, joined a team that included a certified radiology nurse, two nurse practitioners, a radiologist, a radiology administrator, and a fourth-year medical student. Her team borrowed two Sonosite Edge portable ultrasound machines with transducers from the Global Health Loaner Pool. Radha sent…
Emergency Physician Promotes POCUS Education in Laotian Capital
Dr. Jeff Dan, MD is an assistant professor of emergency medicine at Baystate Medical Center, which serves as a regional campus for the University of Massachusetts Medical School. He recently returned from his third trip to Vientiane, Laos on behalf of the nonprofit group Health Frontiers. Two years ago, Health Frontiers began an emergency medicine residency training program. To help develop this program, Dr. Dan traveled with two emergency ultrasound fellows and two educational fellows to Laos to provide a survey course in emergency ultrasound. His team borrowed four M-Turbos for this…
French Medical Mission Brings Hope to Moroccan Villagers
Every year, the isolated villages of the Atlas Mountains in Morocco wait with hopeful anticipation for the Solidarité Maroc medical caravan. Located near the town of Imilchil at elevations exceeding 2,300 meters, these villages do not have a permanent access to medical care, so the villagers must travel long distances to reach the nearest hospital.
Founded in 2007, Solidarité Maroc’s mission is to provide care to the most disadvantaged populations of this mountainous region. Solidarité Maroc provides services such as minor surgery, oral care, and distribution of drugs and medical equipment.…
Doctors Use Pediatric Ultrasound in Bolivia
Pediatric cardiac anesthesiologist Dr. Pablo Motta MD, FAAP recently returned from Bolivia on a medical mission for HeartGift, developed through a partnership between by Texas Children’s Hospital and Memorial Herman Children’s Hospital, both located in Houston, Texas, and la Fundación Incor. in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. The goal of this mission is provide free, world-class pediatric cardiac care to children from underserved areas of Santa Cruz, Bolivia and its surroundings. The long-term is to develop a local team to perform pediatric cardiovascular care that could work independently.The mission…